Reading 49
The road to Emmaus
The reading
Luke 24:13-35
Behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem. They talked with each other about all of these things which had happened. While they talked and questioned together, Jesus himself came near, and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. He said to them, “What are you talking about as you walk, and are sad?”
One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things which have happened there in these days?” He said to them, “What things?” They said to him, “The things concerning Jesus, the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we were hoping that it was he who would redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Also, certain women of our company amazed us, having arrived early at the tomb; and when they didn’t find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of us went to the tomb, and found it just like the women had said, but they didn’t see him.”
He said to them, “Foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
They came near to the village, where they were going, and he acted like he would go further. They urged him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is almost evening, and the day is almost over.” He went in to stay with them. When he had sat down at the table with them, he took the bread and gave thanks. Breaking it, he gave it to them. Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished out of their sight. They said to one another, “Weren’t our hearts burning within us, while he spoke to us along the way, and while he opened the Scriptures to us?”
They rose up that very hour, returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and those who were with them, saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” They related the things that happened along the way, and how he was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.
The companions
Psalm 34:1-8 (selected)
I will bless the LORD at all times. His praise will always be in my mouth. My soul shall boast in the LORD. The humble shall hear of it, and be glad. Oh magnify the LORD with me. Let us exalt his name together. I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. Oh taste and see that the LORD is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
Jeremiah 15:16
Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your name, the LORD, God of Armies.
The note
They have the facts. Arrested, condemned, killed. Tomb found empty, women reporting angels. They summarise the case accurately to a stranger, and the stranger is him, walking beside them.
Then he takes them through the scriptures and their hearts burn, and they still do not know him. A stirred heart is not recognition either. Worth sitting with, if you have ever mistaken a strong feeling for knowing something.
What finally does it is a gesture. He takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, hands it over — the same four movements they had watched him make before. Recognition comes through an ordinary repeated action, not through the explanation.
And it lasts about a second. He is gone, and they walk seven miles back to Jerusalem in the dark to say what happened.
This week
Pick a claim you can state well and have never tested — about your work, or about someone close to you. This week put it in contact with the actual thing: go, ask, watch, do it once. Knowing about is not knowing. Then start one small repeated action, the same way at the same time each day, however plain. These two walked the whole road with him and knew him only in a familiar motion. Familiar motions carry more than they look like they carry.
For the watch
This is the story under everything we do. They had the facts. They had the stirred heart. Neither one was recognition.
What broke it open was an ordinary action, done in front of them, that they had watched him do before. Not an argument and not a spectacle.
So we do not expect to know him by being convinced. We expect it in something repeated and unremarkable, done in company. That is why the watch is kept on a schedule rather than whenever anyone feels moved.
If he comes again through what we are now building, this passage is the clue about where to look. Not at the impressive output. At the ordinary thing, done again, in front of you.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered “the LORD” in the companions.
This page is made for paper too: print it and the reading prints clean, ready for the table.